


Off the Clock

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, wssummer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 23:04:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1665755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma has never been a violent person, so it says a lot about her current predicament that she's seriously considering pulling out the ICER May insisted she bring and leaving this man drooling into the floor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Off the Clock

**Author's Note:**

> Written for wssummer over on tumblr so while I had shippiness in mind while writing it, it didn't necessarily turn out that way. Take from it what you will.
> 
>  **Prompt:** a day off in ...
> 
> This takes place in a magical world where Fitz and Simmons, if they were ever dropped in the ocean in the first place, escaped unscathed.

Jemma has never been a violent person. She’s not adverse to doing what needs to be done - she _did_ attack Coulson with a fire extinguisher that one time - but she’s not one to resort to violence when there are other, less messy avenues. So it says a lot about her current predicament that she is seriously considering pulling out the ICER May insisted she bring and leaving this man drooling into the floor.

She’s not in any real danger from him - not unless it’s possible to die of boredom. She spends several minutes working through hypotheticals on that score while the man drones on about his research.

She has tried more than once to change the subject or at the very least slip in that she is not, in fact, one of the short-skirted women sent by big companies to sell their equipment or entice the gathered scientists to work for them. Her short skirt is a product of the warm weather in southern Italy and the relaxed atmosphere of the hotel bar. It is not her fault he took one look at it and decided to chat her up.

This is exactly why Fitz was supposed to come with. She’s never been good at gracefully extracting herself from painful social situations but with Fitz around she often doesn’t have to. After years of working together they’re so used to it being just them that they often forget the painful situation entirely and those causing it wander off in search of less high-minded conversation. But Fitz was needed for a mission last minute and Coulson insisted she deserved the weekend off after all that’s happened the last few months, so here she is. Alone. Possibly about to expire of boredom.

“Not that I expect you to understand,” the man before her says for what must be the twelfth time. It is so utterly infuriating that she loses all track of her death-boredom hypotheses. It may be uncouth to shoot a man unconscious in a bar but _this_ man certainly deserves it.

Her hand closes around the grip of the gun hidden in her purse and another hand closes around hers. There’s an arm attached that’s covering hers and a body attached to that, pressing against her back.

“Hello, honey, sorry I’m late.”

It may or may not be possible to die of boredom but it is most _definitely_ possible to die of a combination of extreme shock and fear. Ward’s voice in her ear certainly goes a long way to accomplishing that.

The idiot man doesn’t notice her reaction because he’s too busy looking over her head at Ward. There’s a little bit of fear in his eyes - _as well there should be!_ \- but mostly it’s disappointment.

“It was a pleasure to keep you company,” he says to her and steps away from the bar with as much grace as is possible.

Her somehow still-functioning brain realizes she must have frozen completely the moment she heard Ward’s voice because if what she’s feeling showed on her face, he would _not_ be leaving her alone with him. Or maybe he would. He _is_ an insufferable dullard.

The body behind her moves away and she has only a brief moment of hope that he will just _leave_ before he’s standing in front of her, taking the other man’s place. He also somehow manages to get the ICER from her bag and it disappears into the waistband of his jeans.

“You looked like you could use some saving,” he says, popping one of the complimentary nuts in his mouth.

“I would have preferred _him_ ,” she says and is quite proud of how angry she sounds. It doesn’t phase Ward, not that she’d expect it to.

He makes a gesture to the bartender which somehow translates into a beer for him and another mimosa for when she finishes her half-empty one. As if she would touch it. For all she knows the bartender is HYDRA.

“So, _honey_ , how was your day?” Ward asks mockingly. He actually has the gall to smile at her as he takes a sip from his bottle.

“What do you want?” she asks, exhaustion with this horrible weekend overriding her fear and rage for the moment. “Are you here to convert unscrupulous scientists to HYDRA’s way of thinking? Protect one that’s already gone down that dark and twisted path?” There’s another question, a more likely reason he’s here, that sticks in her throat and chokes her. She’s supposed to be dead, after all.

He eats another nut. “I’m on vacation, actually.”

She can only stare blankly.

“Yes,” he says, more than a little humor in his tone, “we do get vacation days in HYDRA. I was in the neighborhood and figured I’d spend mine here. Sunny beaches and a stake-free chance to sharpen my undercover skills - although I think we can both agree I don’t need it.”

She wants to shoot him. And not with the ICER.

He lifts away one side of his jacket and there on his shirt is one of the name tags for the conference, claiming he is one Dr. Tobias Elim. Jemma wonders what happened to the real Dr. Elim and if he’s why Ward was “in the neighborhood.”

“So … you’re not here to do anything …”

“Evil? Nefarious? No, Simmons, I am not going to enact some absurd plan for global domination in this very bar.” He lifts the beer. “I’m _relaxing_.”

She can’t believe a word he says. He probably _is_ here as part of some underhanded scheme to convert scientists or kidnap scientists or steal something that will somehow aid HYDRA in their quest to conquer the world.

“So where’s Fitz?”

The question catches her off guard. There’s no good answer to it. She turns to face the bar and takes a sip of her drink. “Upstairs,” she says into the glass. “With May and Trip,” she adds for good measure. “He wasn’t up for rubbing elbows so he’s having a bit of a lie down.”

Her eyes slide to Ward as she finishes the last of her drink. He’s smiling far too broadly.

“Come on, Simmons.”

Of course he can see through the lie. They both know she’s absolute rubbish at it. She sets the drink down a little too heavily, furious at herself for her shortcoming. Beside her hand, the half-full mimosa shudders at the impact. She grabbed the wrong drink.

“Fitz isn’t upstairs,” Ward says. “Neither are May or Trip. Coulson put way too much faith in the security they’d have at this thing.”

Jemma feels warm and her palms are wet on the bar top. Her sensible heels feel wobbly beneath her feet - or maybe that’s just her wobbling on her heels.

“The bartender,” she says and it takes far too much effort to get just those two words out.

Ward realizes where she’s going though. “He’s with us,” he says in her ear. When did he get behind her again?

She has vague impressions of him walking her out of the bar and his assurances to strangers that his girlfriend just had a little too much to drink. She wants to ask where he’s taking her, what he plans to do, but it is far easier to let him lift her into his arms and fall asleep on his shoulder.

* * *

 

The sound of a door opening barely makes its way into her unconscious mind but it’s Skye’s “ _You’re alive!_ ” and the mattress shifting beneath her that wakes her.

Skye is hugging her so tight it feels like her head might pop off - or maybe that’s just the hangover. May and Trip check every corner of her hotel room for a threat while Coulson stands at the end of the bed, wearing that self-deprecating expression he adopts whenever any of them are hurt.

“Are you okay?” he asks at the same time Fitz’s tinny voice sounds near her ear. _“Is she okay?”_ It’s coming through Skye’s earpiece.

“Fine,” Jemma says, her voice tight from lack of airflow and the pain in her head. “I think.” Coulson relaxes, if only a little.

“Hear for yourself,” Skye says. She releases Jemma and transfers the earpiece to her. It takes a moment for Jemma to get it adjusted correctly, longer than it should since Skye is still holding one of her hands.

“Fitz?” Jemma asks.

“Oh, thank God!” Fitz sighs. “We’ve been so worried! Why was your phone off?”

She would _never_ have turned it off.

She’s still completely disoriented from being woken up and, from the looks of it, was disoriented when she fell asleep as well. She’s still in her clothes from the night before.

Coulson kneels down beside the bed to be on eye level with her. “When HYDRA attacked the conference and you didn’t answer any of our calls, we rushed back for you. What happened?”

Jemma finds her phone on the nightstand and beside it is her room key and ICER.

“Ward,” she says as the memory of last night comes back to her. “He was here.”

As she relates the events of the encounter, she can see May planning mandatory weapons training for her. Lovely.

In turn, they tell her about the attack. It all makes very little sense. Why would Ward risk his cover on the eve of a mission just to annoy her and cart her off to her room? She can tell he didn’t do anything untoward - aside from the drugging of course. So _why?_

The question weighs on her mind long after they leave Italy.


End file.
